Forehead 11’s

One thing I love to do when I see a movie is stay in the theater to see if there will be any funny out takes after the neophytes have already left the building. If you’re a Marvel fan, you likely do the same thing. I guess some directors really do save he best for last. You just have to be patient and avoid following the crowd quickly down the popcorn confettied aisle. It’s worth it.

Much to my surprise, they apparently had outtakes like this way back in the ‘60s…the black and white photography days…at the hospital…in the pediatrics department…when I was born.  Check out this framer!

Can you believe my parents actually bought this photo? I can’t really blame them. It’s good for a laugh; especially when you’re a first born. At mere hours old I was already causing a ruckus. The moxie is that expression is palpable! And if you zoom in, you’ll see that I was born with the physical grooves of a stress-filled ‘11’ in my forehead--Glabellar lines. How does that even develop in the womb? Clearly, I’ve operated in Hard Mode since birth.


Do y’all know about Hard Mode? You might if you play Wordle. Do you play? It’s one of the New York Times games released daily and literally an experiment in a world-wide secret society. If you haven’t heard of it, you should look it up. The 3-4 NYT games I play give me a 10–15-minute palette cleanser for my brain daily. But Wordle is a good game to start with. It’s both fun and easy to play. Essentially, you have six chances to guess a random 5-letter Wordle of the Day. 

Your first try is a literal guess out of the clear, blue sky. Some people use the same word to begin each day like it’s a religion. I go rogue and switch it up! I’m sure that surprises none of you.

Oddly enough, some people play before they even get out of bed. Some wait until they go to bed. It’s a great lunch break activity or enjoyed with a cup of coffee. But what doesn’t happen, no matter when you play, is that no one publicly posts the Wordle once they’ve solved the puzzle. They don’t ruin it for others. Did we all secretly pinky swear so no one blurts out the answer? It’s a beautiful thing, really. Like a tiny little 5-letter present we give each other to promote self-care and unity, literally…without saying a word.

But recently, I learned something major about the game of Wordle. You see, when you type your first word, three things happen:

1. Gray squares show that a letter is not in the word.
2.  Yellow squares show that a letter is in the word, but not in the right place.
3. Green squares show that a letter is in the word and in the right location, too! Clearly, those are the best!

For some reason, I thought if you got a yellow or green square that you had to play those letters in your next guess. Why did I think that? No clue. No one told me that. I didn’t read any rules that said this was mandatory. My Type A personality simply said, ‘Hey, Dawn, you know there’s a T in that word, you must play it’. I made that up in my wrinkly little brain!

When I revealed this to my friend Kylie, she said, ‘Oh, no, I don’t play in Hard Mode.’ Hard Mode, what’s that? Apparently, there’s a feature in Wordle settings called ‘Hard Mode’ that requires you play your yellow and green letters once you know them. It’s hard, thus the name.

I did NOT have my game set to Hard Mode…I just had my brain set to Hard Mode. (See baby pic above for reference.) All this to say that committing to write a blog for three years and trying to publish it on most Wednesdays, a day job, a smokin’ hawt husband that likes to take me out on dates, and a handful of dawnbrown.com clients has proven, yet again, that I’ve been living my life in Hard Mode. It takes dedication to write a blog in your free time. Don’t get me wrong, I love writing, thanks to my high school English teacher, Mr. Fessenden. And I relish writing about my work in the nonprofit field. I especially love getting emails from readers who have followed along throughout the years, hired me to write content, or asked me to speak on the main stage or as a breakout presenter. Carving out the time to do all this outside of my ‘day job’ has been both challenging and rewarding. And then I learned about Hard Mode.

That lovely baby pic above and a recent purely relaxing vacation gave me some time to reflect on a few ideas that I’ve been noodling on for months. So, you’ll soon begin to see some changes in my blog content and delivery. Changes that I believe you’ll enjoy, embrace, and share. Adios Hard Mode!

Three years ago, when my hubs bought me dawnbrown.com, I legally established dawn brown creative, llc. as an official business. I did this because my original idea was to share with you all the creative ways that I have found to market, communicate, and steward donors—ideas that have worked for me. The idea of focusing on right brain and left brain processes needed to market serious mission statements with the sonderful lives of your donors was a concept that I wanted to teach to nonprofit rockstars, like you.  You care so much that you make this hard job of ours look so much easier. I adore that and wanted to support your efforts!
But I’ve realized through the years that only writing about marketing methods and moxie is limiting—playing in Hard Mode. You see, over the last 20 years, I’ve dreamed up, planned, and executed many creative ideas, most of them outside the realm of marketing. So, the dawnbrown.com blog you’ve become accustomed to reading will still contain creative ideas for nonprofit inspiration, ideas, and execution, they just won’t solely be about marketing. I guess it took me patiently writing on that one topic for three years to discover that there’s room for a lot of creative methods and moxie under the roof of every nonprofit, including and beyond mere marketing.

Additionally, I’m a lone ranger. There’s no secretary or cabana boy assisting me, although a girl can dream. That means sometimes forcing myself to meet a weekly Wednesday publishing date means sometimes I forego writing because my schedule can’t make it work on that day. Life happens, right? Or it means I stay up until midnight to make it happen, when I really shouldn’t do that for my own self-care. Or it means, in my harried state, I forget to update the new link or make a typo or two. I’ve been living in Hard Mode. No more!

No more making up my own rules wherein a blog must go out each Wednesday or not at all. Yes, when the dog’s out, the blog’s out—but that might be on a Monday or a Thursday instead. If you’re a subscriber to my blog, you’ll get it hot off the keyboard and be alerted via your inbox. And those who follow via a social media might find it a few days later, simply to honor those loyal followers who are steadfast readers.

Ultimately, I’ve learned a lot by writing for you. I hope you have, too. And I wish that together we can continue sharing ideas, learning from each other, and letting go of rules that we make up that add difficulty unnecessarily. The world throws enough unexpected curveballs at us, there’s no reason to be hard on ourselves.

In my heart of hearts, I hope you’ll continue to read as I expand the creative aspect of this blog into the realm of leadership, grantmaking, investing, culture, and administration. Perhaps you’ll feel compelled to share my content with other nonprofit rock stars outside of the marketing department.  And if this blog inspires you to quit operating in Hard Mode like I am, even better. Forego forehead 11s, say goodbye to Hard Mode!

Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Merrily,

Dawn
[email protected]
dawn brown creative, llc.